Holy Chocolate

10:30pm Thursday 28 January 2010 Sydney (gmt+10)

Last week Sheila and I went to San Churro at Chatswood. I've heard about the place and I've been meaning to go there but I never had the time. It's kind'a like Max Brenner, but with a Spanish and slightly religious twist. And the guy on the logo has a lot more hair than Max.

The story behind the theme is that during the 1500's a monk called San Churro cured the Queen of Spain with chocolate. I did a bit of research on this subject, but so far I cannot find any historical articles online and in my copy of Toussaint-Samat's book The History of Food  proving that San Churro did exist. Although it did make sense because the Spanish were the first to introduce chocolate to Europe, and chocolate has properties proven to help ease depression... and given the sky rocketing cost of maintaining the Spanish army the Queen at that time must've gone through some really depressing periods.

Their signature dish is the Churro, which is often referred to as Spanish Donut. It's like a starch based deep fried dough. The word Churro itself is based on the horns of sheep native to Castile. It's very unhealthy, but goes really well with Spanish Chocolate, which is quite piquant in flavor as compared to Swiss or Belgian Chocolate because of the spices added to it.

The best thing about their Churro, as compared to the ones served in Spanish restaurants around Sydney, is that they make theirs to order. It's still very hot and crunchy when it got to our table. Nice! We also had the Banana Caramel Bomba, the Hot Spanish Chocolate and a Cold Chocolate Milkshake. Overall it wasn't a bad experience. But like any dessert I guess having a chocolate splurge is not something that should be done daily.

Westfield Chatswood

Anderson Street

Chatswood NSW 2067